Thread: Minister of Conservation

Originally Posted by ZQLewis

Maybe you should have seen KA's Facebook post 5th June. Table full of freshly butchered wild venison.
Z
I think she listened to hunters voices more than any precious minister in the last few year few years.
I have friends in DOC and they enjoyed what I think they considered a more open 2 way conversation that KA allowed compared to Sage before her.

My group has had a long running dispute with Doc- we applied for a concession SEVEN years ago..Nada, no progress at all! I wrote to Kiri in May, she obviously booted somebody's arse, and we had a long reply by way of apology that arrived 3 days after she lost the DoC position. I wish she'd stayed on.

KA was a good Conservation Minister, she walked her talk. I was gutted for her when she went down with cervical cancer, and impressed when she bounced back. But now gutted to have lost her from this portfolio. However none of this changes what is already well underway in terms of ungulate control planning, much of which was finessed under KA’s stewardship.

Read up on the Raukumara project (her backyard) if you are still having difficulty understanding.

There does seem to be a real problem with the deerstalkers system or database.
Ive joined twice in last 7 years or so. Both times I received an initial newsletter and confirmation. yet after that not a single piece of correspondence. Not even a reminder to pay subs a year later. When I contacted the waikato deerstalkers about it, they had no record of me being a member despite me stipulating that to be my local branch.

Originally Posted by whanahuia

There does seem to be a real problem with the deerstalkers system or database.
Ive joined twice in last 7 years or so. Both times I received an initial newsletter and confirmation. yet after that not a single piece of correspondence. Not even a reminder to pay subs a year later. When I contacted the waikato deerstalkers about it, they had no record of me being a member despite me stipulating that to be my local branch.

Under the new CEO they seem to be getting their shit together with invoicing and most things really. As you say there was plenty of room for improvement. Im not an apologist for them, and Ive been a member for 50 years. Fortunately they now seem to have dragged themselves from being a club to being an organisation, but it has taken far too long in my view.

very good article in latest NZHunter mag about the access issue leading to high pockets of population.....its a well balanced read.
the other weird/stuffed up part of access is a waro help can land to process animals etc but cannot land to drop of recreational hunters WITHOUT a DOC permit..... dumb and short sighted.... never been up onto tops around haast,but if could hitch a cheap ride up to top of hill with help going there anyway for a couple of hundy bucks would be in like Flynn.... then hunt my way down to flats etc.....

$700 per hour!!!!!!!! you must have very fuel efficent machine,or its pedal powered LOL.... shocked to see 91 octane at over the $3 mark yesterday, diesel still creeping upwards,cant imagine avgas of whatever grade will be far behind it.....
we can all agree a good operator in good machine is the ultimate control tool in open country...the trick is to find one who doesnt get greedy and will leave the right animals so as to encourage recreational hunting.
funny how the wheel turns...the NZFS was actively encouraged to put in tracks n huts to get folks out into back country..... thats WHY the plurry things were built,DOC over last 30 years has progressively done less n less to maintain them (no blame or finger pointing,it is what it is) and now folks calling to upgrade these to get people back out there again....access is still an issue in places and also the country beside public land which holds bigger numbers and is closed off/locked up and actively /agressively policed to keep folks off...and even in some cases to try to keep folks away from country they are legally allowed in.....
its like the possum issue...if spotlighting and rimfires were ok..there wouldnt be many possums anywhere close to roads anymore....heck its a whole lot of hoops to jump through to trap or poison them on public land now.... ticket clippers.. I need say no more.

Might be out of date with the 700/hrs rate with the recent fuel rices but the point is a r22/cabri type are cheap and do the
same job as a bigger machine if you are not lifting anything.

Originally Posted by Puddleduk

Might be out of date with the 700/hrs rate with the recent fuel rices but the point is a r22/cabri type are cheap and do the
same job as a bigger machine if you are not lifting anything.

Yeah well out of touch. I might be wrong but can DoC contractors even use Robinson helicopters anymore?
Be a 500 at a damn sight more than what you quoted.
Yeah it does need more shot, I don't think the NZDA or anyone else would argue with that, but it was a start and a start showing that hunters are prepared to have deer culled and would be happy to help if they could. Simple as that.
And with the latest budget that was announced there will be plenty more government funded shooting going on in the future no doubt.

Originally Posted by TLB

Yeah well out of touch. I might be wrong but can DoC contractors even use Robinson helicopters anymore?
Be a 500 at a damn sight more than what you quoted.
Yeah it does need more shot, I don't think the NZDA or anyone else would argue with that, but it was a start and a start showing that hunters are prepared to have deer culled and would be happy to help if they could. Simple as that.
And with the latest budget that was announced there will be plenty more government funded shooting going on in the future no doubt.

OK then how much is the going rate per hour for an r22 to do search and destroy on pests/game. Also a Cabri G2 has the same performance etc and are used by DOC. Look forward to your answer.

Originally Posted by Puddleduk

OK then how much is the going rate per hour for an r22 to do search and destroy on pests/game. Also a Cabri G2 has the same performance etc and are used by DOC. Look forward to your answer.

From memory( lots of holes in it ) it was no r22's because of the crash stats for r22's could be wrong

some afterthought googling
"Department of Conservation extends Robinson helicopter ban over safety concerns"
The Department of Conservation (DOC) has extended a ban on Robinson Helicopters to include contractors, sub-contractors and volunteers carrying out department work.

DOC is the biggest user of helicopters in New Zealand, spending about $20 million a year.

In 2016 it banned staff from using Robinsons after the helicopters were placed on the Transport Accident Investigation Commission’s watchlist following several fatal crashes.

DOC aviation risk manager Brent Swanson said the policy was extended from Monday due to the risks associated with Robinson helicopters.

correct,no Robbies for DOC contractors anymore.....could possibly be worked around by subbing out to 3rd party EG;NZDA???

It's good to see this thread steered away from politics to an actual hunting issue. I was waiting for a thread on the RHA cull, so I guess this will have to do. Finding it very surprising how many hunters are so keen on this, and how many more are keen to see choppers in there culling. The only justification I saw for the cull was "reports of damage to vegetation", and then some clown banging on about how the cull was "scientific and objective". I hunt the area a few times a year, mainly when I need to fill the freezer, and have not seen significant damage to vegetation caused by deer. Often find kea damage, and some pig rooting in places, but that is about all. It is a huge area with a pretty solid population, as stated above 127 hinds will make almost 0 difference. And, was it actually needed? Well, no one knows, at least that I have seen, as nobody knows the population density, or the population density that the area can sustain, or the natural attrition rate, or hunting harvest, or the reproduction rate etc. There was no science or objectivity to the cull, it was purely marketing. I would have much preferred to see an actual study on the effects of deer on the area, and a target population density with upper and lower bounds, and some way to measure it, and control it if necessary. We should be leading the way on that, not just culling because we think that is what the greenies want us to do. Here is a paper from 1989 suggesting a similar idea https://newzealandecology.org/nzje/1835.

The RHAs specifically exclude WARO, so anyone advocating for this (whether commercial or for charity) has a screw loose in my opinion. The lake sumner area is pretty close to the perfect hunting location, it has amazing scenery, pretty easy access, good animal numbers, and no WARO. Unless you can produce some actual science as to why animal numbers need reducing, by how much, and why choppers are the only way to achieve that, the people advocating for the removal of the last two can piss right off.

I was impressed with Kiri Allan when I did my submission on the new gun laws, she paid attention to what people were saying and asked intelligent questions.

Another vote here for Kiri. I think she was far too rational to be allowed to continue as minister of doc. A shame imo.

A side issue with control is the fact that (as far as I remain aware) you cannot recover any venison for commercial sale from an area that has recently had a poison control program undertaken which is basically all of NZ. That really puts a headache into the recovery aspect and basically limits commercial to destroy missions. It's quite wasteful.